GoMechanic, a branded car service workshops network, was founded in 2016 and initiated by IIM-Ahmedabad graduates Amit Bhasin and Kushal Karwa. Later they are joined by Nitin Rana and Rishabh Karwa, bringing in the complementary and unique competencies to the services of the start-up. Rishab Karwa being the company’s CEO, these co-founders have established their services in no less than 12 cities in India. This Gurugram based start-up provided their services available through their website, mobile app, or even by their central customer care number.

This tech start-up allows car owners to find maintenance service providers and automobile repair centers in their area. Whenever and wherever someone books an order by GoMechanic under the need for any emergency or essential car services, the start-up immediately commits to approach the person and sends their car to a workshop which is functional under that particular city’s policy.

GoMechanic facilitates customers with certain options in the user’s comfort like car pick-up and drop-off option or can set-up an appointment and ride to GoMechanic workshop. Soon after receiving the car, the team at the workshop commences filling the stockpile requirements on a need base. All those details will be shown for the customer or their on-ground representative to get a post-approval. The repair works start as soon as the approval is signed.

Each little aspect and job regarding their vehicle under the work can be tracked by the customer or representative on a real-time basis. Also, the GoMechanic platform enables the customer to track the service detailing, procedures, and billing. Platform’s customer dashboard provides the entire current service details and vehicle service history. For this purpose, GoMechanic enables two applications; one is the garage app and the other one, customer representative app.

It is an asset-light design with a centralized extent procurement of spare components from zero real-estate overheads, OEM's (Original Equipment Manufacturer) with technology-driven efficiency. This is what culminated in significant savings for start-up and at the same time for the customers.

GoMechanics's customer salvages over 40% on their repair costs and acquired services, this is purely topsy-turvy when compared to authorized service centers. These great savings had their seat in centralized procurement, saving on labour costs, and supply of spare parts.

This start-up claims to serve 30,000 cars each month with a current strength of 550 employees all along in their 12 cities. They established 260 repair workshops especially for cars in over 12 cities including Hyderabad, Pune, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Ahmedabad.

• It has a joint tie-up with companies like Mobil Lubricants India, and the start-up also has an official partnership with Uber in Delhi-NCR.

A separate service for battery replacement and tyre changing has been launched recently. On the other hand, It has tied up with many insurance companies to deal with damaged vehicles, and the firm also initiated bike servicing.

The companies’ value has been pushed up to $ 44 million (INR 316 Cr). This is all due to recent investments and funding. Through the SCI investment VI and Redwood trust, Sequoia has invested $5 million (INR 36.69 Cr) in the Series B funding. This start-up has a quite good amount of competitors in the market. Pitstop, carvolution, Zippity and many other start-ups provide the same services with much relevance. 

Like other sectors, COVID-19 has a quite good amount of adverse impact on the automobile industry. GoMechanic’s plans have been delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• As a subjective precaution, the start-up handed over ‘Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) to all its ground force, including the workers and mechanics. Vehicles have also been sanitized before and this turned to be a regular practice when they start repairing.

Their future plans include launching its services in another 20 Indian cities by the end of this year, 2020.